This is both my personal learning project and my contribution in the struggle to confront the ongoing Republican/ libertarian assault on rational science and constructive learning, as manifested in their malicious strategic Attacks on Science ~ A collection of articles, scientific resources, plus my own essays and indepth critique of various presentations from unidirectional-skeptics ~ Hopefully a resource for the busy, yet discerning, student who's concerned about the health of our Earth

Tuesday, February 7, 2017

* EM’s response: Okay, you’ve got me on this one. I did in fact confuse myself between climate science in the media vs the climate science community. I was mainly referencing outlandish claims from Al Gore in “An Inconvenient Truth”by relying on the Republican's outlandish PR fraudster the Lord Monckton - now that's what self inflicted delusion is all about, allow me to explain.

In this continuation of my debate with EM I have allowed him to distract me with SPPI's 35 Errors, Lies and Deceptions contrivance that their "Lord" Monckton has so successfully astro-turfed all over the internet. I will demonstrate that SPPI and Lord Monckton are in fact the malicious liars who ruthlessly politicize the science in order to confuse and stupefy innocents like my pal EM and to further their self-interested myopic and destructive agenda. Here I review points 5 through : Kilimanjaro, Lake Chad, Hurricane Katrina, Coral Bleaching events.

After my introduction

* I will first quote SPPI’s Lord M’s claim.

* Then share Gore’s relevant AIT quotes so you can decide for yourselves how honesty (or not) it was described by SPPI's Lord.

* This is followed with some commentary intended to add perspective to the Lord’s spin and offer ‘the rest of the story’ regarding the issue in question.

* Rounding up the exercise I’ll include authoritative links and some YouTube videos to offer genuine learning opportunities regarding the questions raised.

“A Scientist Replies to Christopher Monckton: Abraham v. Monckton.”

Professor Abraham's presentation can be found at:

Reviewing Lord Monckton’s 35 SPPI Errors, Lies and Deceptions Regarding “An Inconvenient Truth.” (The cloned version I copied for this came from Scottthong.wordpress.)

5. Snows of Kilimanjaro “melting”

> FOUND <Temperature at the summit never rises above freezing. Most of the melt occured before 1936.

__________________________________________________

Quoting Gore's An Inconvenient Truth: And now we’re beginning to see the impact in the real world. This is Mount Kilimanjaro more than 30 years ago, and more recently. And a friend of mine just came back from Kilimanjaro with a picture he took a couple of months ago. Another friend of mine Lonnie Thompson studies glaciers. Here’s Lonnie with a sliver of a once mighty glacier. Within the decade there will be no more snows of Kilimanjaro.

_________________________________________

Here’s another example of how the Republican deception misrepresents. It’s true that the summit never rises above freezing. Melt is due of sublimation which occurs in freezing temperatures. Sublimation has increased due to changing air currents. A warming climate system is what’s altering the flow of our planet's all important jet streams, the atmospheric currents that push and pull storm systems across the globe.

Of course, most melting occurred between the end of the last ice age and 1936! Jezz, those glaciers used to flow hundreds of miles onto the lowlands.

PR wise, Gore picked a lousy example, but to deny global warming's impact on Kilimanjaro is way more disconnected, actually it’s downright dishonest.

Chris Larsen, a glaciologist at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks, called tropical glaciers like those on Kilimanjaro the "drama queens" of the glacier world: they respond dramatically to even slight insults. "When the climate changes, they can portray a bad situation in even worse light," says Larsen. "The fact that these ice fields are now on the verge of ending a 11,000 year existence is quite significant.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Climate change on Mount Kilimanjaro could see the end of those famed snows

Glacier shrinkage on Kilimanjaro is nothing new, but now, it’s faster than ever: around one percent a year from 1912 to 1953 but 2.5 percent a year from 1989 to 2007, when climate change was in full swing. …

It was found that ice between six and 17 feet thick had vanished since 2000. Almost a quarter of the ice was lost from 2000 to 2006: no factor other than climate change on Mount Kilimanjaro can account for this sudden change. Deforestation affects only lower areas, and the glaciers are high above. …

Naysayers claim that it’s lack of precipitation rather than higher air temperatures that are responsible, but isn’t that itself a result of climate change? …

The snows of Kilimanjaro survived a 300-year drought about 4,200 years back, but human behaviour clearly threatens them now. …

_______________________________________________________________

6. Lake Chad “drying up”

> not “ found ” <It also dried up in 8500BC, 5500BC, 1000BC and 100BC. Where was our carbon-polluting human industry then?

__________________________________________________

Quoting Gore's An Inconvenient Truth:This is Lake Chad, once one of the largest lakes in the world. It has dried up over the last few decades to almost nothing. That has been complicating the other problems that they also have.

The second reason why this is a paradox: Global warming creates more evaporation of the ocean that seeds the clouds, but it also sucks moisture out of the soil. Soil evaporation increases dramatically with higher temperatures. And that has consequences for us in the United States as well.

Trying to deny human responsible for the buildup in GHG concentrations in our atmosphere requires a disconnect from Earth’s reality that crosses over into lunatic thinking. There is no debate about our contribution! Only blatant conceited hubristic denial!

During the post-glacial periods, climatic conditions in the Sahara were much more clement than they are today. The actual desert did not have its current proportions, it was much smaller.

According to historians, the Sahara was largely covered by Mediterranean woody vegetation, particularly in the central massifs, which were surrounded by many lakes and dry grasslands. This state of affairs was more conducive to the proliferation of all kinds of wildlife and game.

Depending on the alternation of wet and dry phases, Lake Chad could stretch or retreat, but from 4000 BC. BC to date, the waters have shrunk at a fast pace, corresponding with the advent of aridity and desert encroachment with several origins.

_______________________________________________________________

7. Hurricane Katrina “man made”

> not “ found ” <Maximum hurricane wind speed and number of hurricanes has not increased.

__________________________________________________

Quoting Gore's An Inconvenient Truth:Now I’m going to show you, recently released, the actual ocean temperature. Of course when the oceans get warmer, that causes stronger storms. …

And then of course came Katrina. It is worth remembering that when it hit Florida it was a Category 1, but it killed a lot of people and caused billions of dollars worth of damage. And then, what happened?

Before it hit New Orleans, it went over warmer water. As the water temperature increases, the wind velocity increases and the moisture content increases. And you’ll see Hurricane Katrina form over Florida. And then as it comes into the Gulf over warm water it becomes stronger and stronger and stronger.

_________________________________________

Pure cow pies. No serious person ever said Katrina was caused by manmade global warming! Intensified definitely. Another simple reality that Republican delusionals hide from is that NO STORM OCCURS OUTSIDE OF OUR WARMING GLOBAL HEAT AND MOISTURE DISTRIBUTION ENGINE. These days, every weather systems carries an extra boost thanks to global warming. Simple deniable, but unavoidable physics!
The physical facts are that after a weakened Katrina crossed Florida, rather than blowing itself out, it crossed an extremely warming patch of Gulf Coast waters, it’s those hot waters that reenergized and created the category five monster.

Of course that extreme hot patch was the result of humans warming our oceans at a speed that, geologically speaking, is breakneck.

We exist within a global heat and moisture distribution engine which follows very simple laws of physics. As with all physical systems increasing heat energizes reactions and dynamics - Weather patterns are no different, only god given insanity can allow thinking humans to deny such fundamental physical facts of life.

27 named storms formed in the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season, which broke many records including the most hurricanes, the most category 5 hurricanes, and the most intense hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic.

The intensity, frequency, and duration of North Atlantic hurricanes, as well as the frequency of the strongest (Category 4 and 5) hurricanes, have all increased since the early 1980s. The relative contributions of human and natural causes to these increases are still uncertain. Hurricane-associated storm intensity and rainfall rates are projected to increase as the climate continues to warm.

Large storms roil the upper ocean. This churns up deeper seawater. When that water reaches the surface, it largely controls how much heat is available to power a storm. Since the mid-1970s, average Pacific typhoon intensity has risen 10 percent. Subsurface waters in that time have warmed about 0.75° Celsius (1.4° Fahrenheit) on average. …

_______________________________________________________________

8. Polar bears “dying”

> not “ found ” <Four bears died in a storm. Four. Measly. Bears. Meanwhile, there are 25000 polar bears today compared to 5000 in 1940.

__________________________________________________

Quoting Gore's An Inconvenient Truth:So there is a faster build up of heat here, at the North Pole, in the Arctic Ocean and the Arctic generally, than anywhere else on the planet. That’s not good for creatures like polar bears that depend on the ice. A new scientific study shows that for the first time they’re finding polar bears that have actually drowned, swimming long distances up to 60 miles to find the ice. They did not find that before.

_________________________________________

Gore said nothing of the sort, he was talking habitat loss. That ongoing habitat loss is observed physical facts.

SPPI’s 5,000 figure is pure fiction, no one did a global polar bear survey in the 1930s or in 1940s. The current rough estimate of around 25,000 does reflect an increase from 1960, but that has to do with hunting restrictions more than anything else.

As for the polar bear global warming connection, here are somethings these fraudsters hide from their audience.

The study was published in the journal The Cryosphere, the first study to correlate sea ice changes to polar bear subpopulation in the Arctic region. "This study shows declining sea ice for all subpopulations of polar bears," co-author Harry Stern, a researcher with the University of Washington's Polar Science Center said in a statement. …

The truth about polar bears

Depending on whom you ask, the North’s sentinel species is either on the edge of extinction or an environmental success story. An in-depth look at the complicated, contradictory and controversial science behind the sound bites.

A new study by University of Washington researchers, funded by NASA and using satellite data from NASA and other agencies, found a trend toward earlier sea ice melt in the spring and later ice growth in the fall across all 19 polar bear subpopulations, which can negatively impact the feeding and breeding capabilities of the bears. The paper, published on Sept. 14 in the journal The Cryosphere, is the first to quantify the sea ice changes in each polar bear subpopulation across the entire Arctic region using metrics that are specifically relevant to polar bear biology. …

In 17 of the 19 polar bear subpopulations, the researchers found that the total number of ice-covered days declined at the rate of seven to 19 days per decade between 1979 and 2014. The decline was even greater in the Barents Sea and the Arctic basin …

The researchers found that on average, spring melting was three to nine days earlier per decade, and fall freeze-up was three to nine days later per decade. Over the 35 years of Arctic sea ice satellite data. that corresponds to a roughly 3-and-a-half-week shift at either end — and seven weeks of total loss of good sea ice habitat for polar bears.

"We expect that if the trends continue, compared with today, polar bears will experience another six to seven weeks of ice-free periods by mid-century," Stern said. …

_______________________________________________________________

9. Coral reefs “bleaching”

We have a match - “bleaching” appearsIt was caused by an unusual El Nino pattern, not global warming.

__________________________________________________

Quoting Gore's An Inconvenient Truth:Coral reefs all over the world because of global warming and other factors are bleaching and they end up like this. All the fish species that depend on the coral reef are also in jeopardy as a result. Overall species loss is now occurring at a rate 1000 times greater than the natural background rate.

_________________________________________

SPPI follows with another inane comment meant to stupefy rather than clarify. Yes indeed Global Coral Bleaching Events seem to be linked to El Nino events. Of course, this ‘natural ENSO pattern’ is occurring in an ocean that is absorbing 90% of the extra heat being sequestered on Earth thanks to the increased insulating ability of Earth’s atmosphere.

In other words, El Nino have been intensified by ocean warming > the direct result of global warming > the direct result of increased atmospheric insulation > the direct result of massive fossil fuels burning by people and society. Cascading consequences on the real Earth that we depend on for everything.

THE 3RD GLOBAL CORAL BLEACHING EVENT – 2014/2016

Now predicted to last until at least the end of 2016 - By far the longest event in recorded history.

In 1998, a huge underwater heatwave killed 16% of the corals on reefs around the world. Triggered by the El Niño of that year, it was declared the first major global coral bleaching event. The second global bleaching event that struck was triggered by the El Niño of 2010. The US National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced the third global bleaching event in October 2015 and it has already become the longest event recorded, impacting some reefs in consecutive years.

The new phenomenon of global coral bleaching events is caused by ocean warming (93% of climate change heat is absorbed by the ocean). Corals are unable to cope with today’s prolonged peaks in temperatures – they simply haven’t been able to adapt to the higher base temperatures of the ocean. Although reefs represent less than 0.1 percent of the world’s ocean floor, they help support approximately 25 percent of all marine species. As a result, the livelihoods of 500 million people and income worth over $30 billion are at stake. …

Climate change has already impacted coral reefs in the Great Barrier Reef as corals are highly vulnerable to its potential effects. As the back-bone of the Great Barrier Reef ecosystem, corals play a critical role. They form habitats for thousands of species, including fish and molluscs. …

RECOMMENDED WEBSITES

11/29/2016 I started this blog to debate climate science contrarians, I've done my part, they, the intellectual cowards for their part have run off and hide within their hermetically sealed echo chambers, safe to continue broadcasting more stupidity mixed with anger and hostility rather than constructive learning.

Now this horrendous election. Its changed everything and this blog, not sure where it's going, eventually I need to start another one, one less intent on futility reaching out for what ain't there and more focused on presenting a different perspective for its own sake, and to hell with the rest of it, it's too heart breaking.

I see Dec 19th as a key date. If there isn't serious focused engagement of the public in numbers that surprise everyone, well the oligarch will have their way with us.

Americans need to let Trump know from the gitgo, we do not approve of his con job and he better not get too crazy because he's earned zero good faith or honeymoon considerations. We shall see.

{edited 12/11/2014}

I know there are too many typos, what can I say, eyes aren't what they were, I get rushed, and always did have a thing with transposing…{well, I also hated high school "english" classes... bad call that one.}. Doing the best I can with what I got. Embarrassing though it is, it's better than doing nothing. Besides, it's the issues and reasoning that we should be worrying about.

Though I'm in my own little world here, I'm also constantly learning and evolving and do get occasional feedback and when I reread stuff and find errors or omissions or garbage, I fix it. If it's major I'll acknowledge it with an 'edited' note, minor stuff I don't bother.

~ ~ ~

I hardly keep track of Anthony's latest antics (besides, with Sou on the job why bother - can't beat her insights). It's just me over here and I have more important things to do with my precious hours - still now that Anthony's luster has been wearing thin he's put his energy into discovering and honing new fresh faces to carry on the public show of the Republican/Libertarian strategic attack on science.

He seems to have transitioned into a ring-leader, perhaps mentor/coach would be better, producer? At least that's how Mr. Steele and his antics of the past year has gotten me to think about it. So in that regard this blog remains about WUWT's brand of thinking and logic and my struggle to understand the anatomy of the fraud they've perpetrated against mankind. {December 2014}

_____________________________

ok, now some recommended websites:

This blog was started in April 2013 and is written by an actual scientist so it has a refreshingly serious objective air to it, plus he does a good clear job of explaining complex issues.

Tamino, an acknowledged statistical/mathematical expert of the highest order, at Open Mind also does an excellent job of holding Anthony’s feet to the fire with clearly explained facts and math. Check it out:http://tamino.wordpress.com~ ~ ~

And of course, there is the excellent, most up to date internet depository of climate studies and information for the non-expert public.

Then there's RealClimate.org the scientist's commentary site. Run by working climate scientists intended to help the interested public and journalists sort through the complexities of the climatology. They provide "quick response to developing stories and provide the context" that is too often missing from public media's depiction. {But, you better be serious and have some real science education/understanding under your belt if you want to keep up.}

I remember back in da day, good websites/blogs were few and far between. But over the past years that's been changing to the point that it's impossible to keep up with them all. Here's an incomplete, and long overdue addition to my above list: